Friday, December 21, 2012

around the house

Here are a few little images from around our house today, to mark the solstice. My camera is not so good, or rather I am not so good at figuring out how to use it, but I am getting in the spirit anyway.

Oh look, a book under the Christmas tree. I don't know how anyone can read the end of A Child's Christmas in Wales without blinking back a few tears. But then, I tend to weep over individual fallen leaves and mild frosts, so maybe it's just me. ;O)

What else is under the tree. My mother's old Rudolph, a sawdust-stuffed animal, from the late 1940s? I think. Alongside Miracle on 34th Street (hey, another book, how about that), and some crinkly tissue paper for the cat, in an old garden trug good for hauling gifts around when it can't be put to use outside. (And, upper right-hand corner - a basket of tubes of watercolors.)

A few holiday cards, and the advent calendar we use over and over. Love the happy little snowman.

Oh, winter. Snowflakes have been flying around here all week, and more are on the way. It's fine to look outside and see the cold gray light, the leafless apple tree, and the good bones of all the maple trees...

...and then turn back inside and warm up by the fire. Our little pot-belly woodstove is a refurbished antique that was once used by the Boston and Maine Railroad. It heats the dining room of our house, where we hang out most this time of year. Hodge has a wee braided rug to nap on, next to it.

Our home decorating style, if we presume to have such a thing, is something I could refer to as "Maine Antique Shop" - good old local stuff made of wood, metal, pottery, and fabric. (And paper = books.) All close to home. On our old dining table, another pot-belly stove, another wee snowman. An old tin measuring cup full of organic peppermint candy canes. The decoy was made in a town in Washington County near where I grew up. The man who made it put his name and the town on the bottom of the decoy. He's a little rough around the edges but I love him all the more for it. He has lived, obviously.

Don't forget to put out your stockings, on Christmas Eve. Three, in this house. (Meowy Catmas, as we like to say, especially if Hodge is within earshot.)

This week I've been sitting in the living room in the evenings, just looking at the lights on the tree and meditating about everything. Feeling peaceful and quietly worn out, after a year of much work and big doings, many gains and some difficult losses. Of course I don't just meditate, I read a bit, too. A stack of favorite books is on the trunk we use for a tea table. Christmas Poems, I remember showing this book, here, six years ago! (Search for it, back in December 2006!) That's like fifty, in blog years... Well, still own the book, still love its cover. Under it is an old copy of The Oxford Book of Carols and a Carl Larsson picture book, to help reassure shaky adults and reawaken childhood dreams, holiday or otherwise.

I have one more book to share but will save it for a day or two longer. Best solstice wishes to all.